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Is anyone doing it this year? I wasn't going to, but have suddenly changed my mind. Which seems to be becoming a pattern.

Mr_Grue wrote:Is anyone doing it this year? I wasn't going to, but have suddenly changed my mind. Which seems to be becoming a pattern.

The only writing I should devote my time to in November is to catch up with my academic work...

There's an idea I had a while ago while talking to Markdini. Lots of meat to it, but might be unpublishable.

I managed the 50 000 in 2009 but last year only hit around 16 000. I might try again this year.

Just send in the 3 word story?

Though I have been considering it. I've always wanted to have finished a story

I have occasionally written a book in a month (not counting research) but the quality of a novel written in this time would be questionable. 3,500 words a day every day is not a receipe for quality. And if you are not writing for publication, why are you writing? I'll pass, but best of luck to any who try this. At least it is better than procrostanating, working on and off for a decade, and not finishing the novel.

Tony - I think the idea is to "get it written" so the story is done and ready to start editing, tidying up and generally whipping into shape.

I have a friend who has done it for a few years and she has some rough drafting and her outline all finished before it starts.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know of anyone who has had a book published after this month?
I think a lot of writers agonise too long instead of just sitting and typing, but this seems too quick to me.
And is there any way of regulating it? Someone could have the outlines done, and all the hard work, but could you truely say the novel had been written in a month if the preparation had been done in the weeks or months before.

I'm not sure it needs regulating. It's a way to get it written.
Just had a look and saw this: http://www.nanowrimo.org/publishedwrimos
It doesn't say if any of them wrote what was published in a month, but there are a lot of them so maybe.

Without wanting to sound like a life coach, you can easily cheat with NaNoWriMo but the only person you'd be cheating is yourself. It's an exercise, not a competition.

Some people have eventually turned their NaNoWriMo story into a published work but the 50 000 word story you get at the end is far from completed. It's a first draft. The purpose is an extreme version of "writing begets writing". It's so easy to hit a wall / block and then give up but NaNoWriMo forces you to push through any excuse of writers block or "I need time to think". Quality is secondary. The funny thing is that by forcing yourself to write, you'll take the story in directions you'd never considered because you need to write something.

I know too many people who rubbish NaNoWriMo yet still talk about getting round to writing that novel. At the end of a month you might have 50 000 pages of cack but at least you've written something, played around with an idea and everyone who has actually hit the big 50k will tell you it's a really worthwhile exercise.

Bigshot, that's an impressive list of writers who have published after taking part in the event. And I concede the point; writing 50,000 words and treating it as a first draft is far better than sitting on your *rse and dreaming of being a writer.

For years I sat on an idea, with no inducement to do anything more. Then Ireland went bankrupt. I took out the idea, gave myself a deadline of three months (I was too lazy for a one month sprint) and at the end I had a product that got me an agent and the smell of a movie deal. So I was wrong to be dismissive of this. If anyone does go for it, best of luck.

Got thinking in the shower just now, and decided to join in, but not (necessarily) with fiction. I'm a bit behind with a stack of academic writing of all kinds (short and longer essays on magic, popular non-fiction, PhD, peer-reviews) and I've been having fiction cravings for a while now (haven't written a story in about two years..!) I'll be losing some time on research, but will try and hit 2000-3000 words a day.

For those of us who are taking part, will we report back in this thread to see how we're getting on?

We must.

TonyB - the core of my idea is based on specific historical events, but I'd be spinning a very different and specific story from it. If I can make it stand apart enough, then hopefully it oughtn't be a problem.

My NaNo history:

2006 -- made a reasonable start, caught flu, spent most of November in bed
2007 -- chose topic badly, never got inspired, gave up
2008 -- Colin's stepfather died a few days into November
2009 -- Colin's mother died a few days into November
2010 -- caught flu again

So it hasn't been much of a success so far. But proving that I'm bloody but unbowed (or at least just bloody-minded), I'm having another bash at it this year. We've had our flu jabs early, and there's nobody left who's likely to peg out any minute, so the only potential problem is my workload. (When it comes down to a straight choice between NaNo and paying job, the job has to take priority.)

Even with this dismal history, it's done me a lot of good in helping me to get past a long-standing writer's block. I've always figured, even if I only manage to write 1000 words all month, that's 1000 words I wouldn't have written otherwise.

And yes, anybody can sign up and then cheat their way to a win. Let's face it, you can copy and paste 50,000 words off Wikipedia and submit them to the word counter. But, frankly, if anybody thinks it's that important to be allowed the privilege of printing off a certificate, they might as well have the certificate.

Preparation beforehand isn't cheating -- in fact, it's encouraged. You can do all the planning and outlining you want. You can spend all year planning. The only thing you can't do in advance is the actual writing of the story.

As I try to do every year, I've just posted a forum thread called "And these were PUBLISHED!".

Every December issue, Writing Magazine prints a list of horrendous lines taken from books that were actually published during the year. I pick a few favourites to share with NaNo-ers. They're both cheering and encouraging. Have a look!

http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/reac ... eads/18039